


Narrow The Space Between

by Heather



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bickering, Gen, Handcuffed Together, Humor, Male-Female Friendship, Noodle Incidents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-22
Updated: 2015-08-22
Packaged: 2018-04-16 16:25:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4632030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heather/pseuds/Heather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zuko didn't know what kind of field trip Toph had in mind, but this probably wasn't it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Narrow The Space Between

**Author's Note:**

> For #6.

It was entirely possible that this was the stupidest situation that Zuko had ever gotten himself into.

He'd definitely been in _worse_ situations. Any time that he had ever been at Azula's mercy from about age ten onwards leapt immediately to mind. Trying to drag an unconscious Avatar through frozen tundra with nowhere to go, that was pretty bad, too. Telling his father to his face that he was going to betray him when they were only seconds away from getting their bending back shot straight to the top.

But looking back on all of those things, there had been _reasons._ Explanations he might be able to provide to a sympathetic ear that made it all fall into place, so that the response might be, _Well, thank goodness you got out of that in one piece._

This, on the other hand, was a story where the only possible end result was, _What could you have **possibly** been thinking?_

"I still say we could've taken those guys," Toph muttered sulkily.

Zuko tried to turn his head to glare at her, which was difficult, with both of their necks scissored in a folding plank of wood. Their wrists were in the same predicament immediately below their chins, and Zuko guessed that the police who had tried to arrest them must have recognized Toph, because they took the additional precaution of putting each of Toph's hands and feet into their own little wooden boxes.

"Yeah," Zuko said, deadpan. "I'm sure that would've worked out well for us."

She let out an annoyed little huff. So did the donkeygoat that their plank was chained to.

Zuko turned the glare on the donkeygoat's ass- which was definitely easier, since his face was pointed that direction anyway. "Why are you taking _her_ side?!"

The creature made an indignant bleat and swatted Zuko in the face with its tail.

Toph laughed. "I think he's still mad that you burned his butt, Sparky."

"That wasn't personal!" Zuko yelled. "How else were we supposed to escape?" He was still smarting from that brilliant plan. At least Toph's boxes had slid more or less easily along the ground, so she had been held upright as the donkeygoat frantically stampeded through the town square and then off into the wilderness. Zuko's legs were raw, bloody messes from the knee down.

The donkeygoat was unsympathetic. It gave him another swat with its tail.

Zuko clenched his teeth and growled.

Toph laughed again. "You've sure got a real way with animals, Zuko."

"I wouldn't be chained to a donkeygoat if you hadn't gotten us arrested in the first place," he said.

"Me?!" Toph said. "You're the one who pulled out the swords! _I_ almost had them talked into letting us go!"

"You earthbent a rock and yelled, 'Run for it,'" he said. "How is that talking them into letting us go?"

"Well, at least I tried something," she huffed. "You could've, I dunno, _bribed_ them into letting us go. Loosen the purse strings, Crown Prince Cheapo."

Zuko gritted his teeth. "I don't think that trying to bribe a policewoman with the money we were accused of stealing would have helped our case much."

"Because who likes money better than swords?" Toph asked. "Not police, that's for sure."

"Next time, you can try getting out of it all by yourself," he said. "I knew this was a bad idea."

"Then why'd you come?" she asked. "You didn't _have_ to, you know. It's not like I held a rock over your head until you said you wanted to go on a crime spree. You're not a helpless victim here!"

Lacking the range of motion to send his outraged look at Toph, on whom it would have been wasted anyway, Zuko gaped in the general direction of the donkeygoat's ass. "'Oh come on, Zuko, it'll be fun,'" he mimicked sarcastically. "'It's no big deal, I used to do this with Aang and Sokka all the time. Even Katara took the stick out of her butt and did it once! It'll be like you're really part of the team! We never do anything fun together!'"

In hindsight, that was where she'd gotten him. Feeling like part of the team was still a work in progress, even after his so-called 'field trips' with the others. They'd forgiven him and he appreciated it, but there were still a lot of anecdotes he wasn't there for, a lot of inside jokes he wasn't in on, and for all that he'd known them all for months, if in an evil and chasing them capacity, he sometimes felt like a stranger.

"Is that supposed to be me?" Toph asked, sounding so caught off-guard by his impersonation that she hardly even heard the content of it.

Zuko let out a frustrated groan. "I'm not good at impressions, okay?" he said. "That's not the point!"

"Is the point that you're secretly the little girl?" she mocked. "Because you're starting to sound like it."

"The point is I'm just trying to be your friend!" he said. "I'm not good at that, either!"

The donkeygoat let out an unimpressed little grunt. Toph said nothing. 

Hot shame crawled down the back of his neck, and Zuko sagged into his bonds. Controlling his temper in the face of even minor setbacks: also a work in progress.

"You're a great friend, Zuko," Toph said eventually. "You gave up your whole life to come here and help Aang. That's something that only really good friends do."

Zuko felt a little stab of hope. "You think so?"

"Yes," she said. "I do." She scuffed one of her foot boxes a little in the dirt. "And I should know. I did the same thing."

"That was a little different," Zuko said. "You hated your life."

"I hated the rules," Toph corrected. "My life wasn't so bad. I could go bend with the badgermoles when things got tough. And I was an undefeated champion at the Earth Rumbles. That was pretty sweet."

Zuko didn't know what the Earth Rumbles were, but her pride in this accomplishment was so obvious that he guessed it must've been really impressive. "That sounds- sweet."

"It really was." But then she sighed a little, and sagged in her bonds. "And even though my parents were bad at caring, that doesn't mean they didn't. My mom and dad really loved me."

Zuko turned his eyes towards the ground. "I wouldn't really know anything about that," he said. "Back home, the only people who miss me are probably Mai and my uncle." As an afterthought, he added, "And maybe Azula, a little."

"Azula?" Toph asked, incredulous. "You think Azula misses you? I thought you guys hated each other."

He didn't really feel like trying to explain the relationship he had with his sister. "It's complicated," he said.

"Yeah, I can get that," Toph said. "Mom and Dad, bad at caring, remember?"

"Yeah," he said. "I'm sorry."

Toph was quiet for a moment. "I wrote a letter to them after the last time I got arrested," she said.

"You've been arrested before?" Zuko asked.

"Focus on the point, Sparky," she said, exasperated.

"Right," he said. "Sorry."

"I wrote to them," she repeated. "But they didn't write back." She sounded so miserable about it that Zuko was glad his hands were bound. His instinct was to reach over and pat her shoulder, and it probably would've just made things worse.

Not that having to think of something to say was much better. "Maybe they tried to," he said, "and it just didn't get to you. It's not like you have a permanent address where people send you stuff all the time."

"If my parents wanted to get a message to me, they would," Toph said. "They sent kidnappers after me to bring me home before. Sending a messenger to track me down would probably be even easier."

He realized his perspective on this was not exactly that of a normal human being, but it still seemed relevant to ask, "Why would they send kidnappers after you if they stopped caring?"

"I don't know," she said. "Why would they give up after kidnapping didn't work if they still did?"

"Maybe they just decided they respect your choice," he offered. "Or maybe they needed time to think. Or- I don't know. It could be a lot of things. It doesn't mean they forgot about you, or gave up on you."

"Maybe," Toph said. "All I know is, if they don't want to make up, I'm going to be all by myself when this war is over. I won't have anywhere to go."

"The rest of us would never let that happen," Zuko said. "Sokka and Katara would take you back to the South Pole with them, or you'll live with Aang wherever he wants to go." He paused. "You could even come back to the Fire Nation with me if you want." Heh. "If _I_ still have a home there."

Toph was quiet for a moment. "You really are better at being a friend than you think," she said. Then she kicked him in the ankle with one of her boxes.

"Ow!" he cried. "Could you work on other ways to show affection?"

She laughed. "Only if you work on your criminal mastermind skills," she said. "That display back there was really pathetic."

"My criminal mastermind skills are fine," Zuko said. "I was the Blue Spirit! I'm a world-renowned thief in the Earth Kingdom!"

Toph laughed again. "Some world-renowned thief," she said. "Chained to the back of a policewoman's donkeygoat."

The donkeygoat let out an annoyed little bleat. Apparently, it didn't appreciate the implication that being chained to it was a major step down in the world.

"Where's this thing taking us, anyway?" Toph asked. "I can't really feel." She clomped her left foot box on the ground for emphasis.

"I'm not sure," Zuko said. "Hopefully somewhere the others can find us to cut us out of this."

"Can't say I hate _that_ idea," Toph said. "But hey, at least if we die like this, we died with friends, right?"

Zuko smiled. "That's right."


End file.
